This was my favorite of the two. As you can see from the picture, the fresh Roma Tomatoes Followed by the Vinegar and the lime juice was a winning combo.This sauce has a very strong vinegar taste that leaves you mouth wanting more.The Tomatoes and the Vinegar combined with the lime juice make the sauce very very Runny.We were having Ribs done in a slow cooker for dinner so i was interested in seeing how this sauce does over ribs and rice.This sauce added just the righ amount of vinegar and flavoring to these ribs.Although you can taste the Chyenne pepper there is not much heat in this sauce at all.

As like the first sauce, there is alot of vinegar in this one.You can taste the Jalapenos and the lime juice but the strong taste of vinegar hits you right away.There are little shredds of Peppers in there to add a nice burn to the sauce.I need another bowl of ribs and rice like i needed a hole in my head but i had to take one for the team.This sauce poured out much slower than the first…I feel that this sauce had much more of a vinegar taste to it than the first but when all is said and done this sauce added the the flavor of the ribs and rice.

Labels….I have to say the Guys at Benitos have there own idea of how a hot sauce label should look.The graphics alone are enough to makes you want to pick these bottles up.

These

Jersey

Boys make one hell of an organic sauce.If you enjoy a vinegar base sauce with some real citus taste,you will like these Overall i liked the flavor that it added to my food.

Benito’s Naranja Organic Hot Sauce
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a sucker for vegetable and carrot-based hot sauces. You give me a good one and I’ll keep coming back like a sad little puppy dog begging for more. Now up at bat is Benito’s Naranja Organic Hot Sauce, a tasty-looking concoction that uses fresh organic and all-natural ingredients.

Aroma: 4.5 out of 5. Very fresh and light. I sensed hints of vinegar and garlic, blending in with a pleasing vegetable aroma. I’m not joking; after a few sniffs of Naranja, my mouth started to water.

Texture and Appearance: 4 out of 5. Naranja is a bright orange (of course, naranja is Spanish for the color orange), probably due to the presence of carrots. The sauce in my bottle contained very, very few minuscule dark specs amongst the pure orange mix. It’s consistency is a ground-up, mashed fusion of veggies, peppers, and watery liquid. It’s simultaneously runny, clumpy, and pasty. My review bottled came with an optional plastic dropper piece to fit on the top of the bottle. I didn’t use it for my review, as I wanted to get a sizable dose of the sauce on my food; but for proceeding uses, the dropper was fine, for the sauce is thin enough to allow enough to be dispensed with each shake.

Taste Straight Up: 5 out of 5. I poured a small puddle of Naranja on my plate and fingered some into my mouth. Immediately there was a blast of some of the freshest, strongest, tangiest vegetable flavors I’d ever had the pleasure of placing on my tongue. If I hadn’t known any better, I could have sworn someone had just picked some produce straight from the garden and made a nice picante salsa.

I noticed there was a complete lack of a saltiness (I guess some sauce makers rely on the white stuff in their condiments that my mouth was expecting it) and it made Naranja taste relatively bland by comparison. A moment later, though, unexpected high notes slowly materialized: the tartness of the vinegar and lime juice, small peeks of onion and garlic, and the slight searing sting of peppers. It seemed bizarre that these flavors didn’t come out for the first few split-seconds of time. It’s akin to a gorgeous swimsuit model being in a darkened room. First, you would shine a flashlight on her wonderfully tanned and toned stomach. Attractive, but incomplete. Then, someone would turn up a dimmer switch for a ceiling light to full brightness to reveal of of the most beautiful sights your little eyes have ever seen. In Naranja’s case, it’s your taste buds drinking in all that delightfulness.

Taste With Food: I shook generous amounts of Naranja on a flatbread wrap with grilled chicken breast chunks and melted monterey jack cheese. Good God, was it good!

Ever since I acquired my bottle, I’ve been dousing this sauce on just about everything I’ve consumed, save for my morning coffee. I can’t get enough of it!

Serving Suggestions: I could think of a hundred great culinary applications for Benito’s Naranja Organic Hot Sauce, but why don’t you grab a bottle and see for yourself?

Heat: 2 out of 5. It’s got medium-level heat. I was expecting a bit more fire because of the habs and thai peppers, but since the sauce tastes so great it’s certainly not a letdown. The heat hit the front of my tongue and lingered for a while after eating.

Label: 2 out of 5. It shows a peaceful outdoor scene, and on the back a photo of a man (Benito?) lazily sitting by a river. For some reason, it really doesn’t represent contents of the bottle.

Overall: Like the label states, Benito’s Naranja Organic Hot Sauce is “A Delectable Addiction”.Benito has really hit on something special here. Again, I love carrot-based hot sauces – in particular, Tabasco’s Tabanero, but this may be the best of it’s kind I’ve ever eaten.

Gathered up the straight up mutt crew for another rainy July weekend in VT. Got in some great tubing runs on the White River in the Gayesville/ Stockbridge area. We arrived at the brewfest at about noon on Saturday the 19th. It is held at Waterfront Park in Burlington. Prices have gone up in recent years because the event is gradually becoming more commercialized. I immediately b-lined right to the Trout River Brewing stand to snag a scotch ale…not too robust but crisp and refreshing! Also hit up Otter Creek/Wolavers with their Saki infused Otter San brew. Some other highlights were the Long Trail folks dropping fresh blackberries into their Blackberry Wheat, the Peak Organic guys and their Expresso Stout,nice and hoppy and Orlio Organic which is apparently made by Magic Hat. At the end of the day I found most of the mutt doggs back at Trout River Brewing Co. enjoying their famous Rainbow Red, Chocolate Oatmeal, Scotch Ale, Altered Trout, Hoppin’ Mad Trout and Boneyard Barleywine. Trout River Brewing Co. is located in the town of Lyndonville, Vermont. They make some of the best beers on the planet, but only distribute within the Green Mountain State. They had this one wheat beer that reminded me a lot of the Sunshine Wheat made by New Belgian Brewery in Fort Dank, CO.

I ran into Chris Greene from Greene’s Gourmet of Vermont (Gourmet Hot Sauce). I couldn’t resist a hint of his Texas Chipotle. It is pure smokyheat … BANGIN!!! This stuff is phenomenal on cornbread crackers!

Their were lots of great eats to offer, everything from shish cabobs to pulled pork

sandwiches to brick oven pies (at $4 for a mini slice). Dogfish Head, Smuttynose, and Palatable Pepper Products (out of upstate NY) didn’t show this year. We retreated back

to the campsite to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the mighty White River. There is nothing like Summers in Vermont.

Headed uptown yesterday for Benito’s first annual Spanish Harlem hot sauce festival sponsored by Keystone Light. All in all, it was BIG FUN! Pete from Queens made some authentic teriyaki ginger chicken skewers. They were bangin’ , they made the perfect sample food to use when experimenting with Benito’s pallette of flavors. Everyone sampled most of the sauces. We got a lot of positive feedback which is always cool. Dartso himself showed up with some surging Guinness cascading system that he couldn’t get to work. The mechanism works by vibrating a glass of beer to produce the cascade effect that is similar to the consistency of a Guinness draft from your local drinking establishment. Ultimately , the thing turned out to be nothing more than a very cumbersome nightlight. Naturally, the grill was going all day. It was loaded with Pete’s signature chicken skewers, Seth’s famous cheddar bratwurst, and Healy’s sopping bricktucky cinnamon wings (posting recipe soon).

The festivities eventually had to be moved inside. Late night, someone thought it would be cool to throw some ground organic habanero powder into a pan with some hot olive oil. The fumes became unbearable to the point where there was actually a rush of about twenty five people for the door. Anyway, it was a blast…definitely looking forward to next year! Good food, good friends, and barbed wire around the perimeter, what more can you ask for? Much thanks to Healy and Ryan Murphy for hosting the event!

Yesterday, Del and I swung down to St. James Gate in Maplewood for all you can eat wings provided by the crew at Defcon. We arrived around one in the afternoon. The bar was packed with hot wing conneisseurs. I immediately shouted for a long trail draft and hit the wing stand hard! They had three grades of sauce for the public to sample (Mild, Medium, and Very Hot). Devo and I started with three mediums and one hot each. I found the mediums to be extra tasty, an excellent mix of that tang that I have come to expect in a good wing sauce, accompanied by a slow steady release of sting. Then it came time to try the hot….I didn’t really realize the intense heat of the sauce until I took a swig of beer, and then another and another, then I realized the lingering pain would not subside. Needless to say, we took a subsequent break from the VERY HOT (aptly named) and retreated back to the medium grade. At that point I couldn’t taste any heat in the medium grade wings (taste buds were totally burnt out) so I sucked down another Long Trail (or three???) and went back for some more very hots ( a machismo thing I guess). Anyway, I found them to be more tolerable the second time around, but it still took me almost ten minutes to eat three wings which is definitely a first! Some friends showed up, only one of whom had the guts to try a wing on wing day. She had one very hot and was runnin’ for the hills. The heat was so intense that she got three completely naked wings after that and would not try any more sauce. Apparently they had a little contest in which contestants had to consume ten wings in four minutes without drinking anything before having to sit and flail for another four minutes in order to win a prize (some sauce or a shirt I imagine). Needless to say there were no takers from our group.

Eventually, I introduced myself to the owner and handed him a bottle of Joe’s #1 Jalapa which he very much appreciated. I thanked his wife for warning me about the very hot, before purchasing a 16 ounce bottle of the medium grade sauce. When I asked them if I could get a picture, the owner (whose named I already zoned out on) insisted that he put on the gear which consisted of a full gas mask set up with the “hazardous” effects (see photos below).

I’m looking forward to their next appearance which is in Union, NJ some time next month. Cool people….kick-ass sauce!